As a warning to anyone reading: don’t start running to lose weight. Running burns calories and can increase your calorie maintenance, but it will also make you very hungry. Weight loss is mainly about CICO, and you can’t really outrun the fork. Since running can be very natural to humans as a form of movement, it also burns very few calories for the effort. I feel like weight training is a more fair calorie spender for the effort.

But running and taking care of myself does make me pick healthier options. Running helps me sleep, so I’m less tired and as a result, less hungry and prone to wanting unhealthy snacks. Fried greasy foods aren’t great fuel for runs, so I’ll naturally pick things like oatmeal, bananas, veggies etc. But be warned, many runners also love a post run beer so YMMV.

Get a Brother. My simple black and white laser printer has very strong “ME PRINT FOR YOU. ME PRINT! ME PRINT ALL PAGE FOR YOU” energy. The only beef we have is when he is all “NO PRINT. FEED ME PAPER” and then when fed he goes back to printing no problem.

It costs a chunk to run, but saves a lot in health bills - even in countries where healthcare is universal. Heart disease is both a killer and something that can incapacitate you, and any potential weight loss benefits aside, running is fantastic for heart health (provided you do it properly and with the approval of your medical professionals). Not to mention it also has focus, mental health, and sleep quality benefits. Plus if you really get into it, you’ll soon be training for some disturbingly long race and be too busy to do much of anything - especially shopping for pointless things you don’t need.

I’d say that most people can get started with decent wicking workout clothes (thrift them if you can and go for gaudy neons if you live in a place that’s dark most of the year), and a pair of decent running shoes on sale. Wireless headphones and a running belt (or just going for pants with zippered pockets to hold your phone) are small upgrades that also make it better if you have a bit of extra budget. Run like this for like a year, and then slowly upgrade with gadgets like running watches, CamelBak backpacks if you start doing long distances and feel like you need it. Also consider investing in slightly better clothing based on what you determine your needs are - colder climate thermals, merino, running shoes for specific pronation, and rolling tools to help you stretch.

Running can be as cheap as less than ~$100 a year or as expensive as you want it to be. It’s cheaper than the gym, CrossFit, at home workout equipment, yoga classes, etc. Not to shit on those things at all, in fact cross training helps you build strength and avoid injury. But nobody should ever feel discouraged by running due to costs, it pays off in spades.

And for new runners, run s l o w. Slower than you want. So slow you feel you’re not doing much and practically walking. Slow and long runs are the ones that make a real difference in building stamina, cardio health, and even decreasing your race times. You’re also less likely to get injured and prematurely get winded by using up all your energy in a sprint. Also, walking is fine. Even experienced runners walk during certain moments - usually for me, I’m doing it to get a burp out or something.

Also, don’t make the mistake that smaller parrots mean less commitment. Parrotlets and lovebirds are smart, feisty, bite pretty hard, are extremely loud, and still live like 25 years. Budgies are a bit dumber and nicer, but still live a long ass time. Cockatiels have a very nice personality and are musical, but they have 25 year life spans. Consider any small parrot to be a “25 to life” deal.

Also chances are, your parrot (of any kind) either won’t talk, or won’t shut up about the wrong things. Hope you like hearing the Teams call music at all hours.

Rats carry all the personality of dogs and cats. In theory, you get a pet that you’ll enjoy for 2-3 years. In practice, you’ll be devastated after your intelligent best friends start dying one by one. Most people cope by buying rats constantly.

As cool as Earthships sound, I feel like they aren’t a good fit for all climates. I’m in Canada, and unless you live in BC (and I’m talking Vancouver or the island), your only sustainable building option is straw bale.

Even if I could go further south to a more temperate climate, part of my fear is that anything south will get unbearable soon. Even Europe is going to be hot as hell.

My parents favourite music artists finally popped up on Spotify about 5 years ago. It was a dry run until then - I was PISSED when my brother lost my CD of a band I liked when we went back home on vacation.

Fuck that, I like you.

Technically none, but my partner pays for Spotify and I’m on a shared YouTube Premium plan. I used to have 5-6 subscriptions and cut them off in January 2022. No regrets! Even buying an old machine second hand, an external storage, and a VPN still costs way less than my many subscriptions. It’ll be hard to give up Spotify… Too convenient.

Disagree. Celsius is super helpful for determining if it’s gonna snow or not, a key weather thing where I live. Humid and cold and below 0? Snow. Humid and cold and above 0? Rain or freezing rain.

Also helps with plants. Below 0? Frost.

I’d argue you can’t get more intuitive than 0 is cold, below 0 is very cold. Celsius also plays nice with round numbers, every 5 or 10 degrees is a change in feeling. 0 is cold, 5 out is cooler, 10 out is cool, 15 is moderate, 20 is comfortable, 25 is room and warm, 30 is hot, 35+ is very hot. Every ten degrees we’re doing big changes. 0 is frozen, 10 is cool, 20 is comfortable, 30 is hot. 32 being frozen doesn’t feel as intuitive.

Humans weren’t ready for easily accessible sucrose, let alone an easily manipulated reality. My parents can’t tell the difference between Facebook rumors and reality. My siblings can’t tell the difference between YouTube conspiracies and reality. And I’m this boat, letting myself get personally affected by text on some website. We’re in over out heads.

One of my Linux people left Odysee recently. Can you guess why? He got sick of all the Nazi shit.

Reminds me of leaving my ex. Went from “baby I love you, don’t leave 🥺” to “fuck you, you’re nothing without me, you’re a crazy bitch” in the span of minutes.

I’ve had a pretty bad time time to get Heroic to work, but I’m very slow with this stuff. I think I’m a very non-tech person that constantly attempts techy things… And the results are all over the place!

I’ll try it again soon, but I’m garbage at getting anything Wine related to work. Why I put myself through this, I’ll never know.

Thanks for sharing this! I also play Steam with Proton and the only games I play are Minecraft, Stardrew, and the Sims 4 (modded). I want to switch distros but I don’t want to have to deal with the Nvidia thing again so if POP ships with drivers outta the box, I’ll be happy.

I need to try some of those other games. I’m not big on any major AAA titles myself.

I’m not very worried about the monitor thing, right now I have some basic 1080p monitors and I may just eventually get one big great monitor. Hopefully just one monitor will not give me issues? How was gaming on Pop? I had a bit of a time getting Nvidia to work - kept getting some error. I needed to get the reinforcements (aka software dev boyfriend) to help. I heard Pop comes preinstalled with a lot of drivers.

How do you like PopOS? I’ve been on Ubuntu for about a year and I like it but… It’s Ubuntu. I don’t necessarily love how the file system is set up, and snaps… Just… Snaps. I’ve been considering either Mint or Pop.

This was years ago (2010 I think) before the good Linux driver for Wacom was made. Or maybe during the infancy days of it. I had a Bamboo Fun. It’s funny to me that I’ve been fiddling with Linux since 2010 - growing up during the recession made me pretty receptive to making free solutions work, even if it meant troubleshooting things I didn’t understand and crying at 2am because it’s not working. I went back to Linux last year and it’s been insane how easy it all is.

Hugs to you. Honestly I just want the hardware support for drawing tablets to get better (on Linux), and I want Krita to work well on Android eventually. I bought an iPad even though I own nothing in the Apple ecosystem because it’s just the wiser choice when it comes to drawing tablets with screens. But it’s so much better than the days people told me to “just get GIMP, it’s like Photoshop but free” - also the nightmare of trying to make my Wacom tablet work in Ubuntu… Dark days. We’ve come so far.

Pixel art might be an exception, you’re right. But to be fair, people can make pixel art in Paint. I mean, I’m sure it’s not fun to do it in Paint, but it’s very much the “ballpoint pen on notebook paper” of digital art.